Peter Gutwein,Treasurer
Jeremy Rockliff,Minister for Education and Training
The Government has received extremely concerning feedback from teachers who claim they felt intimidated by the AEU into voting against the Government's previous wage offer.
We have been advised that not only were members strongly urged to reject the offer, the detail included in the offer wasn't explained clearly enough and the vote that followed was taken as a show of hands with the members' vote photographed, making it very uncomfortable for anyone to vote against the union position.
The Government has today written to the AEU and other unions to express our concern over these standover and intimidation tactics.
Reports today that the AEU was dismissive of its own members feeling intimidated is also extremely concerning. Union bosses appear to be running their own agenda with little regard for what the members who they are supposed to represent actually want.
In response to these unacceptable actions by union bosses, the Secretary of the Department of Education Tim Bullard will be writing to all teachers on Monday to remind them that support services are available if they have been negatively impacted by this inappropriate consultation.
Standover tactics are never acceptable and the Government urges unions to listen to their members and offer them secret ballots so they can cast their votes appropriately and comfortably.
